Gentling the Cowboy (10 page)

He explored her with his tongue, seeking out and finding her excited nub. Once there he brought one hand around and used two fingers to open her more to him. He lightly blew on her and loved how she moaned in response. One of her hands was braced on the higher branch; the other was clenched on her thigh.

He took her hand in his and laid it over her blonde mound. “You are so beautiful. Feel how beautiful you are.” He pushed her middle finger between her wet lips and guided it to her clit. “Feel how much you like this.”

Holding onto the branch above her with one arm, she closed her eyes and moved her hand up and down in small jerky movements. He said, “Look at me.” She opened her eyes and he could tell that she wasn’t yet relaxed enough to fully enjoy herself. “Did you like my tongue on you?”

Shyly, she nodded.

“Then touch where you want me to lick. Rub what you want me to suck. Pump that finger inside yourself if that’s what you’d like to feel me do to you next, but don’t close your eyes. I want to see you fuck yourself. I want to share it with you.”

Beneath his hand, she began to move hers again. This time she started as he had, by circling her clit. Then she rubbed it. Awkwardness fell away and was replaced by a rhythm that had them both breathing heavily as her eyes burned with the intensity of her pleasure.

He knew exactly when she dipped her middle finger inside herself, and the act sent a sledgehammer of desire through his gut. He shifted the position of his hand so his finger could enter her as well. She gasped and her eyes widened, but she didn’t protest.

In unison, they pumped in and out, and he loved the wild look that entered her eyes when they did. He said, “Now taste your finger.”

She shook her head.

He stopped moving and took her hand in his. Her finger was wet with her juices. He licked it, never looking away from her shocked eyes. “You will and you’ll enjoy it, but I can wait.” He kissed both of her thighs and then sank his face back into her beautiful pussy and caressed her as deeply as his long tongue would allow. He rolled his tongue and used the thumb of one hand to stimulate her while he continued. He went deeper and deeper, withdrawing now and then to blow on her excited nub until she was writhing on the branch in ecstasy.

She tensed against him, then began to cry out, “Oh, God. Oh, God.” He held her securely as she started to shake and maintained his intimate invasion until she was shuddering beneath his hands and came in his mouth. Then he lapped at her swollen lips slowly, knowing how to gently soothe her.

When he stopped and looked up at her again, she smiled even as she blushed. “Now that’s what I call a prize for winning our race.”

He was beginning to understand that she used her humor as a shield. He didn’t ease up and let her. Instead he nipped her thigh and growled, “I can’t wait to fuck you in my bed tonight.”

She gulped visibly. “I thought we’d . . . uh . . . I guess I just assumed that you’d want to do it right now instead.”

He shook his head. There was an intense pleasure in knowing that he’d been the first to bring her the ultimate pleasure, and that he’d guided her toward doing it for herself, but this was only the beginning of what he wanted to teach her. He helped her down from the tree, noting the red marks on her ass from the rough bark. Turning her around to inspect her, he said, “You should have said something if it was hurting you.”

She peered around to her backside, then smiled sheepishly. “I didn’t notice. It’s fine.”

He held up her underwear for her to step back into, loving how she braced herself with a hand on his shoulder as she did. “I’ll kiss it better tonight.” Next he held up her jeans and enjoyed refastening what he’d undone earlier.

Mine.

She stood there as he dressed her, in a flushed daze that tempted him to change his mind and take his own pleasure right then and there. He leaned down and stole one last kiss from those delightful rounded lips before setting her back from him. Her brown eyes widened with a mix of excitement and alarm. His pleasure could wait until there was no sign of the latter. Some men believed in pushing past resistance. That had never been his style. She would come to him boldly before the night was over.

With a nervous lick of her bottom lip, she asked, “What do we do now?”

He reached down and retrieved his hat from the ground, brushing it off on one thigh while noting the absence of one of their horses. “Looks like we chase down your damn fool horse.”

Sarah spun away from him to search the field. When she didn’t see him immediately, her whole demeanor changed. “Oh, my God, he’s gone.” When she looked up at him, he was temporarily held immobile by the real distress in her eyes. “I should have tied him to something. I wasn’t thinking. This is my fault. He has to be okay.” She gripped Tony’s arm, tears instantly cascading down her cheeks. His heart leapt into his throat. “We have to find him. You don’t understand. I can’t lose him,” she said desperately.

Her reaction was extreme, so extreme that Tony wondered if it about more than just her missing horse—perhaps a past loss she felt responsible for. He understood the second option far too well to be comfortable with it.

If she’s broken, I’m not the man for her.

He wasn’t the rehabilitation type—not with horses, and certainly not with people.

Her past is none of my business.

Yet he couldn’t look away from those pleading brown eyes.

He called to his horse, who instantly trotted over. He swung himself up into the saddle and reached a hand to Sarah, pulling her up behind him. She wrapped her arms around his waist, burying her damp face in his back. Had he been able to speak he would have told her that most likely her horse had headed back to the barn.

Don’t get involved.

Find her damn horse and tell her to go.

Sex is only going to make this worse.

“Do you see him?” she asked urgently, her arms tightening around him.

He shook his head. He would have said something to comfort her, but her fear seared through years of numbness and the words choked in his throat. Her emotion reached inside of him and pulled at what he’d long denied. Pulled at what haunted his nights and had driven him to this solitary life.

When he’d decided to invite her to stay for a bit, it had been because he enjoyed the idea of showing her how much pleasure she’d been missing. He’d chosen the pace. He’d been in control.

As they neared the barn, he didn’t see her horse as he’d expected to and hated the emotions that rushed in. It didn’t help that he felt her breasts pushing against his back with each shuddering breath she took. Something that normally would have turned him on instead revealed the depth of her fear and made him want to pull her into his arms and comfort her.

She’s here for a night of fun—maybe a week tops.

I don’t care about her or her damn horse.

David walked out to meet them at the door of the barn.

“Have you seen the Paso?” Tony bit out the question.

David shook his head.

Tony turned his horse back to face the open field. He issued an order over his shoulder. “Send the men to do a perimeter check. I want a helicopter up in the air and every inch of the valley searched. No one comes home without that horse.”

In his often irritatingly calm manner, David drawled, “He couldn’t have gotten very far. With some on horseback and a few in trucks, we’ll find him before nightfall. You sure you want to involve Dean?”

As a tangle of emotions battered him, finding the horse was the only thing he
was
sure about. Spinning his palomino, he was on David, barking out his command. “I want that horse found. Now.”

David shrugged. “You’re the boss.”

Tense beyond what such an event should have made him, he snapped back, “I am.” With that, he urged his horse to move with more force than normal. Sarah clung to him even tighter as they surged forward into a gallop. He finally slowed at the top of a small hill that gave them a better vantage point, letting out a long sigh.

“Thank you,” Sarah said quietly from behind him.

“We haven’t found him yet.”

The grateful squeeze she gave him had nothing to do with holding on and sent his heart thudding painfully in his chest. “No, but we will. If anyone can find him, it’s you.” The faith she placed in him filled him with guilt. She deserved better.

He laid one of his hands over hers on his stomach and said harshly, “I have nothing to offer you outside of what we shared earlier. Don’t start thinking this is more than it is. When you find your horse you should probably go.”

He felt her take a shaky breath before she asked, “Is that what you want?”

He searched the open field and the edge of the surrounding wooded area as he answered, “No.”

They rode in silence down the side of the hill and headed toward the tree line. A helicopter flew overhead. The pilot tipped the aircraft in their direction. Tony directed him to the other side of the woods with a wave.

“I’m sorry that you have to do all of this for me.”

He didn’t answer her. What could he say? It’s not a bother? He wasn’t one to lie. He could only imagine what Dean had thought when David called him. The papers would love the story, too. He could see the headlines now:
Carlton loses mind, now horses. Details on how far this reclusive horse trainer has sunk at eleven.

Oh, yes, he couldn’t tell Sarah that she wasn’t a bother.

She’d been trouble since the moment he’d found her in his shower.

But, God help him, he didn’t have the strength to warn her to leave again.

What did I expect him to say? It’s a flipping joy to disrupt my ranch and chase down your horse for you?

He said he doesn’t want me to leave, but he also doesn’t want me to stay.

What’s a woman supposed to do with that?

As she and Tony entered the shaded covering of the woods, she felt another wave of panic overtake her. And as they often did, her thoughts scattered and tangled as she tried to calm herself.
I am so sorry, Scooter. I never considered that you could be the price of a wild adventure.

But that’s me.

I can’t be trusted to care for anything . . . or anyone.

It always ends badly.

Tears filled her eyes, making it impossible to see past the plaid of Tony’s shirt.
I don’t know why I thought Texas would be different. That I would be different here.

They say you should write what you know.

I should stop trying to write a romance, and write a fucking tragedy.

Images of the intimacy she and Tony had shared just a short while ago rushed back to taunt her.

Okay, not all of this trip has been bad.

At least now I know that my bits and pieces work.

If I had tied Scooter to a tree, I could be having mind-blowing sex right now.

Oh, my God, I’m a bad person. My horse could be hurt and calling for me and all I can think about is how I’d like to be pressed this closely to Tony but without all these clothes.

No wonder he keeps suggesting I leave.

I’m a loon.

A loon who may have just killed her horse.

She hugged Tony’s strong back and said, “You’re probably wondering why I got so upset when we’ll likely find him and he’ll be just fine.”

“No.”

Her voice went up several octaves. “No, he won’t be fine?”

“No, I wasn’t wondering.”

Sarah stiffened in response. “Well, that’s not nice.”

He tensed beneath her touch. “I told you, I’m not a nice man.”

Sarah bit back an instant desire to agree with him. If she believed him, she’d leave the moment they found Scooter. But that was the problem: No matter what Tony said, she saw something in him that she couldn’t walk away from. Like on TV when people sit and talk to family members in comas, believing that they can be heard even when doctors tell them they can’t be.

Tony’s trapped inside this gruff man, but that’s not him. I know it isn’t.
You could judge a person by what he said, but Sarah had always believed that a person’s true nature was revealed in his actions. Tony had taken her in when she’d needed a place to stay. He’d been unselfish in lovemaking and now was on a full-out hunt for an animal that meant nothing to him.

His tough talk was just that—talk.

Although she couldn’t see them at the moment, she could picture his soulful eyes looking down at her.
I don’t believe you, Tony Carlton.

You and I were meant to find each other.

“Thank God,” Tony said, and for a moment Sarah’s heart soared until he added, “There’s your damn horse.”

Deep in the woods, quietly munching away on the short brush in the coolness of the shade, Scooter paused and looked up at their approach. He whinnied to the horse beneath them and received an answering call. Tony swung a leg forward over the head of his horse and slid to the ground, turning to help Sarah down.

“He looks unhurt. Does he come when you call?” Tony asked without taking his eyes off Scooter.

“When I have grain.” Tony turned to look at her and she said a bit defensively, “It was never an issue before.”

With no softening to the harsh set of his jaw, he said, “I could help you work on a few things with him.”

Hope welled within Sarah, but she fought to conceal it. She looked at him boldly and asked, “How long would that take?”

Desire lit his eyes and ignited a responding heat within her as she waited for his answer. “Could take a day,” a hint of smile pulled at one side of his mouth as they continued to stare into each other’s eyes. “Could take a few weeks.”

And there it was—an offer of an extended stay.

An opportunity to learn something entirely different than they were discussing.

A chance to see what was behind all that talk.

All she had to do was agree.